Tuesday, September 30, 2014

The last pick up for Tuesdays families! We wish we had so much more to share with you! The weekends' work harvesting the potatoes was extremely disappointing - just like digging the garlic. A row that should have yielded fifty or sixty pounds of French Fingerling produced a couple of buckets of small sizes. Same in the Linzer fingerlings. We just can't figure it out - decent soil, we kept the potato beetle at bay, the rains seemed to come when we needed them. Just not enough heat? Last years' harvest was a disaster, too, and this was all new seed purchased from reliable sources. At least we got a decent dig on the rare and lovely Pink Fir Apple, which all of you are getting today!

None of the winter squash was very prolific this year, and harvested sizes are smaller than normal. At least we've got some tomatoes to share! There are currently two, count them: two, decent butternut squash in the field - as green as can be! There are a few smaller sizes that will probably never complete. The field is full of fall cabbage which has not filled out - so disappointing!

This winter squash salad with goat cheese sounds fantastic! If you're a Single or Part share with a smaller squash, just reduce the ingredients accordingly! We've shared lots of links over the last few weeks for pumpkin/winter squash recipes! You can freeze some, too! We roast a squash and then scrap out the meat, put it up in plastic zipper bags in one cup portions - which is exactly what you need for most baking recipes. Two bags will make a nice little pot of soup for four people!

Still have a zucchini on the counter? Or maybe you shredded and froze some? Any apples hanging on a tree in your neighborhood? These Apple Zucchini Muffins sound fantastic! And since we know you have carrots....try these Carrot Cake Pancakes! Speaking of carrots - fresh garden carrots will store for three to four month in the fridge. Here's directions for storing carrots, applies for beets as well!

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Yesterday was a disappointing day for us. We were working on the potato harvest, checking winter squash and digging garlic. Nothing has met expectations this year. The winter squash foliage should be covering the plots and the squash should be ample. Instead we have found little spread and the squash are few and far between. Last year the butternut covered a thousand square feet and there were 50 or 60 squash. This year: sparse foliage and maybe twelve butternut, none ripe and only three of a decent size. The potato harvest was even more depressing: we took up a full row of Linzer, a fingerling that is one of our favourites. What should have given us twelve or up to fifteen pails of four to five inch long potatoes yielded about two pails of two to three inch potatoes. Everything was done as usual. Was it lack of heat? Inconsistent water? We could second-guess ourselves all day but yesterday was not a happy day!

These last few days of heat, although hard to work in, have been fantastic for the tomatoes! If you follow us on Facebook, you may have seen this last night but we thought we'd share it here as well. Fast and Easy Fresh Tomato Pasta Sauce! Next week will be the last CSA share for the year and we will load you up with tomatoes: as ripe as we can and some that need to ripen on the counter! You all know never, never, never put a tomato in the fridge, right? Right??? Check out this post for ripening tomatoes indoors...you can even improve those tasteless, perfect-looking, store bought globes in mid-winter!

We'll be giving you big bundles of carrots today and carrots and beets next week. Check out Tuesdays' blog posts for tips on storing root veggies in the fridge for extended periods. Eat all the small ones first, or any with dings or scrapes - they won't keep well. And eat some of those wee ones now - raw! They are delicious! And have you made pesto with carrot tops yet? It's awesome!

We've gotten the first decent pick on tomatillos today. They are a tomato relative, with a papery covering. They are like dry, tart tomatoes so you can fry them up like green tomatoes! They are the main ingredient in fresh Salsa Verde, which you may have had while on vacation in Mexico or Central America. We've also picked tomatoes today - we just can't wait any longer. The forecast is fantastic for the next five days and we'd rather they ripen on the vine but we've taken what we can! None are really fully ripe, but should ripen in a few days on your kitchen counter. Remember to turn them every day, so that soft spots don't start where they have contact with the counter! These are heirloom tomatoes, mostly Pink Brandywine and Black Krim. The first will ripen pink, the latter will ripen a dark rusty red. There are a couple of Aunt Ruby's German Green - which stays green with a gold flush and is ready when it softens up - very tasty. They are not pretty: weather fluctuations have caused cracking around the stem but it is cosmetic! A heartbreaking amount have gone straight to the garbage can because they were too cracked, too soft or leaking. It's hard to throw something out when you've been babying it since February! On the 'upside', we've ripened a few on the counter and they are soooooo tasty!

We're also going to be doing bigger bundles of carrots this week and next! Eat the smaller ones now, and prepare the bigger carrots for storage! Here's a great link for storing carrots! Properly prepared, fresh carrots will store in the refrigerator for three to four months, but bigger sizes are best! The same can be said for beets, and you'll all get some good bundles next week! And don't forget to eat your carrot tops! We've posted before about this but here's another link with some recipes for carrot greens!

Friday, September 19, 2014

Well, got home from our CSA meet-up last night to find the power out. No power, no internet around here. Farmer Man phoned the Manitoba Hydro trouble line and our trouble was not listed so we checked our system, assumed it would be short lived and lit some candles. Evening chores were done by flashlight. Over an hour later, he phoned again and we were now listed, cause being a pole with wires down and no idea when it would be fixed. So I went to bed. The power came on again a little after 10 PM, but I did not get up to finish the blog post....sorry! Then this morning...just no internet! Re-booted all the equipment, checked all the connections and nothing. So, a couple of hours later we're finally back to normal and finishing the CSA newsletter!

I guess the big surprise in the baskets was fresh celery. Late Wednesday evening our pal Roger showed up with some gorgeous heads of celery and some spaghetti squash. Roger is a 'potato pal' - he and Jes met over the search for interesting potatoes. Roger seems to grow a lot of things that he doesn't eat...hence, he thought of us when he had some lovely extra celery! We wanted to make sure everyone enjoyed some of this treat, so we split it as best we could! Don't forget all that foliage is wonderful for seasoning soups, stews and sautees....and may make an interesting pesto! Thank you, Roger!

Baking with winter squash is a delight! Please replace the 'canned pumpkin' in any recipe with roasted, fresh squash! Try these Pumpkin Donut Holes! There's also great links at the bottom of the post for muffins, donuts and more! Here's the Winter Squash Muffin recipe we use all the time. We've made it with pretty much every type of winter squash. We roast a whole squash, let it cool, then pack away the roasted flesh in one cup portions - ready for these muffins! In the zipper type freezer bags, they store flat and can be stacked or tucked into all kind of spare space in the freezer! Check Tuesday's blog post for some more recipe ideas!

How do you deal with some of the larger, hard skinned squash like Hubbard or Boston Marrow? Well, a saw can help. A large, sharp knife and a rubber mallet can be good. Check out this post with some ideas for cutting winter squash. One of the best tips I ever learned was from an elderly farmers market customer: she would wrap a large squash in a plastic garbage bag and just throw it on the concrete floor of her garage. It would break into pieces in the bag: just wash off and prepare! I've used that trick many times!

Have you tried baking your Swiss chard? Here's a great recipe for baked Swiss chard, Greek style! Beet greens would be lovely in that recipe, too! Heard of kale chips? You can do that with chard or beet greens as well - here's a recipe for Beet Green Chips! Here's five more great recipes for beet greens! While you're at it: eat those carrot tops! We've posted this before and some CSA members have now had carrot top pesto and loved it! Check out a number of things to do with carrot tops, including pesto, here! And these roasted carrots with cumin and chick peas sound fantastic!

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

The tomatoes came through our cold spell nicely, under their fleece cover!

Well, the cold spell has come and gone! The forecast is warm for the next five days. We definitely had frost - there are touches on the summer squash, the cucumbers that we didn't cover look crispy. Everything we covered is fine - and hopefully will keep going as the weather improves now!

We started digging our garlic...and what a disappointment! The heads are small to, well, tiny! Can't figure out why when there has been such consistent moisture this season. We knew something was 'up' when they didn't flower or scape. We love the scapes and we missed them this year! The garlic is tasty, but some of the cloves are just little slivers. We found, when we dug some on Sunday to go with our lamb shank (see our Facebook page) that it is just too much hassle to try to completely strip the papery covering off the tiny cloves. And you know what? It didn't matter - it was so light it just disappeared during the cooking.

Spaghetti squash is coming nicely. It's so unique in that the flesh comes out, well, like spaghetti rather than a nice soft puree. Here's a great recipe for using it just like pasta, gluten free! Try Spaghetti Squash with Turkey Meatballs on a cool autumn evening! Or how about stuffed with lasagna! This would work well with any winter squash. The seeds of all winter squash are edible, once roasted! Pumpkin seeds are the best known, of course, but they are pretty much all good and great to toss on salads, roasted veg or even to top your muffins and such! Here's an great link with basic instructions for harvesting and roasting the seeds. This vegetarian stew with winter squash, crushed tomatoes and beans sounds delightful! A rift on Mexican posole, it would be rib-sticking and warming on a cool Fall night.

Feel like a little baking? Here's Pumpkin roll with maple frosting! This would be wonderful with Sugar pumpkin, Kabocha, Hubbard, Boston Marrow or even Delicata! These Winter Squash Brownies sound fabulous - and the link has a bunch of other links for pumpkin/winter squash goodies!

Fall is a fantastic time to start making casseroles. The house smells good, having the oven on warms things up a bit on a cool evening. Comfort food indeed, and casseroles are often quite simple! Here's a great link from The Kitchn with 10 Casserole Recipes including vegetarian lasagna and a potato, squash and cheese version.

Got zucchini or other summer squash to use up? These zucchini and cheddar hand pies sound good. If you're not into making the dough from scratch, I'm sure those tubes of crescent rolls in the grocery store would work just as well!

Thursday, September 11, 2014

All the tomatoes under fleece! Two five-hundred foot rows!Thanks for pal Deb who came and helped!

The last thirty six hours, for us, have been all about frost! Wednesday night had a possibility (although I don't think it happened) and tonight's forecast low of -2 Celsius ( about 29 F.) will absolutely do some damage. Wednesday afternoon we put aside soap making and barn cleaning and a few other chores to cover, protect and harvest everything we could! The summer squash will not make it through temperatures below freezing so we took everything we could find. Today's CSA families will get a handful of the delightful wee baby summer squash and free choice of some larger green and yellow zucchini. We saved enough big ones for Tuesday's families, because they will hold well. And we donated a bunch to Samaritan House. We had to make hard decisions today: dig potatoes or keep harvesting tender veggies? The tender veggies won out, so there are no potatoes for CSA today!

The cucumbers will probably not survive also. We have covered the Lemon Ball and part of one patch of slicing cukes but the rest will be left to fend for themselves. The thing is, when frost comes, is that we only have so much stuff to cover stuff with! And our priority: the tomatoes and peppers. It is unbelievable to us that our CSA families have not yet gotten a ripe tomato! And it's almost the middle of September! So we've picked some that were showing some colour and have 'tucked in' the rest!

Many of you will still have larger sizes of summer squash and here comes the winter squash! All are fabulous stuffed - here's a link with a myriad of stuffing recipes! We've taken the first of the Spaghetti squash today, and it and vegetable marrow, as well as large sizes of zucchini and Patty Pan are my favourite for stuffing. The sweeter winter squash, such as Kabocha and Acorn, are lovely with a fruit stuffing. Simple, easy and looks impressive on the plate!

It's 9:30 PM and I'm just finishing the blog post. After getting home from CSA we've had a quick bite to eat, put the goats and chickens to bed, fed the dogs and cats, then picked some crab apples for some friends that want them but can't seem to get over here to pick their own. It was getting too dark to even see the crab apples, so we've unloaded the CSA crates from the truck, checked all our frost protection and covered a few more things and there is nothing else we can do. It is what it is - and we'll find out tomorrow just what has transpired!

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Farmer Man digging potatoes first thing: Fresh is
what we're all about!

I must admit that I had my snow pants on this morning. And a toque. It was seriously that kind of chilly! And I'm a bit of a pansy where working out in cold weather for extended periods is concerned. I still have light-weight summer chinos out for wearing - the heavier denims and corduroys are put away so something had to be done! There was just enough wind that my legs were cold so...the snow pants were easy to find!

Veggies are getting a bit more 'field to fork'! Our help has gone back to university, so Jes and I are doing everything ourselves. Once again we ran out of time to do very effective cleaning. Usually things harvested first, like potatoes, are put into our crates to air out and dry off. Today, nothing much dried, so the dirt was sticking to the potatoes, onions, carrots and beets.

Part of the experience of CSA is really seeing, and eating, the cycle of the growing season. Lettuce, peas, beans came and went. The summer squash appeared, and just never ends! Winter squash has started to appear. As we go through this little cold spell, notice how the weather changes your veggies. The skin on cucumbers and summer squash gets a little thicker. Swiss chard gets a little 'chewier'. As we go through the next few weeks, if there is a little frost, do you notice the carrots and the beets getting any sweeter? Some of interesting veggies are ready: today we've got the all-blue potato Russian Blue and some purple carrots!

Here comes the winter squash! Winter squash is different from summer squash in that it is ready later, and you don't eat the skin. The seeds aren't eaten unless you roast them. Things like pumpkins, butternut squash and acorn squash are some of the best known...as well as spaghetti squash which is unique in that the flesh comes out in strands like spaghetti. Most winter squash, cooked, is rather more like potatoes in texture except for nutty, often sweet flavour! Winter squash is often interchangeable in recipes, you just get a slightly different version of the dish. We've made muffins, for example, with butternut, Sugar pumpkin, acorn, Hubbard, Boston marrow, Delicata, buttercup and Kabocha. They are all wonderful - just different flavours and textures! And please, please, please make any recipe that calls for canned pumpkin and just substitute your fresh, roasted Winter squash for fabulous flavour! Wash and half a winter squash, roast in the oven at 375 C. until the skin is easily pierces with a fork. Some recipes call for the cut side down on your baking sheet, some call for cut side up and buttered or oiled. Doesn't really matter. The roasted flash scoops out of the skin quite easily and is ready to use for muffins, loaves, soup and pies! Everyone got a Delicata today: a small oval with ridges. It is known as the sweet potato squash because it tastes vaguely like sweet potatoes. Some CSA members love this one for fries!

Will the broccoli finish?

That being said, these Pumpkin Roll Bars sound fantastic! Our Full Shares got Vegetable Marrow today - a large beige oval. This one has less flavour than many winter squash, but excels at absorbing flavour. We always stuff them, then serve out slices. Use any recipe you might stuff something with: turkey stuffing, green pepper stuffing, leftover rice, quinoa...you name it1

Yes, there is still summer squash! Look back through the links in the blog for something new to try! This Zucchini Boat with Mediterranean Rice Salad, found over at the Hedley's Health Hut Facebook page, sounds really good and quite easy!

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Thursday CSA seems to have no luck this year...when it comes to rain! Another rainy Wednesday evening and early Thursday morning. Thunder, lightening - the whole show! But, we're already behind with Thursday's families so when the weather radar looked like it was going to end mid-morning we decided to go for it! It's mucky - no question. And the veggies are dirty - no question. But, there is some awesome stuff ready to go and we got it!

We're into September, I haven't seen any stats but I think this summer has been short on heat and long on rain! On the Weather Network, the 'High Water Level' is back on due to the rain. Yeesh! We have some lovely, lovely tomatoes - all as green as anything. We can't seem to ripen a tomato this year! Anybody love fried green tomatoes, let us know - we can make you happy! We've lost a few cantaloupe due to rot starting where they lay on the ground.

Here comes the winter squash! We've got our first pick today on vegetable marrow - a traditional favourite with my mother's family - enough for the Full Shares only today. It can get a little confusing because Brits tend to call small zucchini 'courgettes' and large zucchini 'marrow' but what we have is a different thing called 'vegetable marrow'. It is a winter squash so you don't eat the skin, although we have one farmers market customer whose family has always eaten the skin on all winter squash! On it's own, vegetable marrow is rather bland. It's fantastic, though, at absorbing flavours! Our traditional family recipe involves spiced sausages removed from the casing - anything from breakfast sausage to chorizo would work, depending on your spice level. Check out this recipe for sausage stuffed marrow! You can stuff it with anything you might stuff a pepper or tomato - just think flavourful because the marrow will absorb the flavour! We've also got a wee pick on Delicata - known as the sweet potato squash for its' resemblance to the taste of sweet potatoes. It's a favourite of one of our long time members who happens to be allergic to potatoes - it is perfect for making fries!

Finally, here comes the carrots and beets! We've got a nice little dig on purple and red carrots today - for a little veggie 'bling'! And STOP! Don't compost those carrot tops...they're good eating, including a nice, slightly bitter pesto! Here's a great link with ideas for eating your carrot greens!

Zucchini and other summer squash continue to do well. Hmmh, Greek zucchini fritters! Here's a great link to a plethora of links for zucchini recipes: everything from bread to muffins to appetizers with goat cheese! In Tuesdays' blog post we mentioned the spiralizer - a little gadget that will cut your zucchini or other veggies into pasta or curly fries. If you've got a mandoline or if you have good knife skills, you can cut your zucchini into lasagna noodles!

Cucumbers are doing well! Anybody wanting to pickle - let us know. In the meantime, how about using some for cucumber canapes? Little, bite-size cucumber slices for hors d'ouevres or as a side? Everything from cream cheese to crab to sun-dried tomatoes make awesome bite size delights! The bigger sizes are perfect for chunky salads like Greek or this chunky cucumber salad. Cucumber are also fantastic for beauty treatments....no, really! Here's some great ideas for cucumber facials.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Hard to believe it's September: Where did Summer go? Did we have a summer this year? We're already into a cycle of cool nights and warm days; our dwarf Amur maple 'Fireball' is already showing Fall colour in the leaves! And the Fall solstice is still twenty days away! For many of our members this is back-to-school time and we totally expect a few of you to forget your pick up today in the rush of events! Happens every year. This odd summer has some of our garden renters coming to us with problems like mould and mildew on everything from tomatoes to winter squash. Dense planting, over-head watering with a can or sprayer are all leading to problems for gardeners.

The gardens carry on, nonetheless. We're at the uncomfortable moment between crops - the winter squash, carrots and tomatoes are not quite ready, the beans are tailing off, the lettuces and peas are finished. We see a touch of frost on the foliage of our winter squash, up in the north part of our fields, out in the open. Just a touch - must have happened that evening that got down to six degrees Celsius. The cucumbers seem to be loving this weather, though! We've got our first pick on Lemon Ball cucumbers. Yes, those little yellow balls are heirloom cucumbers! They've got a bit of bristle on their skin; just scrub it off and they are a delightful slicing cucumber. Also coming on are tomatillos and ground cherries - we've got small picks on both which will be on the trading table - on of the reasons it's good to come early!

Amanda and Ed have come through today with the first pick of corn! It's probably all they have to share - but it's a start. Our corn, knocked over during one of the storms, is coming along fine but is a week, maybe two, before it's ready. Amanda and Ed also brought a nice selection of herbs!

Ground cherries, from pineapple flavours to lime,
depending on the ripeness!

Have you heard of a spiralizer? You can put veggies like zucchini through the little machine and noodles come out! Here's a recipe for Zoodle Pasta, an example of the fabulous things you can do! They are also handy for curly potato fries and fancy carrots! How about zucchini for breakfast with these Whole Wheat Zucchini Pancakes? Classic zucchini bread is always welcome, and this recipe makes two loaves, one of which would freeze well if nicely wrapped. Here's a link to a bunch of links for zucchini bread, including versions with berries, chocolate chips and lemon!

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About Us

Down at Aagaard Farms we are busy planting, growing and tending gardens, chickens, goats, pigs and more! We sell direct to our customers through a Community Supported Agriculture program for families who don't have time or space to grow their own produce.
We practice sustainable growing using organic practices. Our desire is to bring fresh, naturally good food from our farm to your table. We are excited to share what's happening on the farm ... here on THE VINE!